Forecast

Letter: Choices are irrelevant if all options out of reach

To the editor
| on March 19, 2017

I am writing as a physician to express my opposition to the proposed GOP Obamacare replacement bill.

It is stunning how the bill callously guts the Medicaid expansion, defunds Planned Parenthood, and ends the requirement that insurance plans cover mental health care, maternity care and pediatric dental and vision care. The consequences to this bill, if signed into law, will undoubtedly raise costs to women, the poor, the sick and older adults, while providing tax cuts to the most wealthy.

Preventive health care including well-woman and child health care visits will no doubt decrease, and inevitably patients will present to care much sicker with more expensive needs. Republicans enjoy extolling the benefits of "choice" in repealing the Affordable Care Act. Choice, however, is only relevant if one has access. Dismantling the ACA will decimate the ability of vast numbers of the American populace, particularly those most vulnerable, to afford health care.